Markieff Morris says he ‘deserves’ Sixth Man of the Year award due to Suns unexpected success

Pro Basketball Talk | Apr 13

We broke down the race for the Sixth Man of the Year award a couple of weeks back, and Markieff Morris of the Phoenix Suns definitely received consideration.

It’s just that given the cases you can make for guys like Jamal Crawford and Manu Ginobili, each of whom has been extremely valuable to their respective teams’ success (which has exceeded that of the Suns’), Morris seems to fall to no higher than third on the list.

But he has a different way of looking at things, and if the voters choose to view the race the same way, he may have a shot.

From Paul Coro of the Arizona Republic:

There are plenty of numbers that make the argument for power forward Markieff Morris to be the NBA’s Sixth Man Award winner but Morris thinks the one that seals his case is the win column.

“Coming off the bench with energy, scoring, rebounding, making my teammates better and winning games, especially when we were supposed to win 17,” Morris said. “When you’re supposed to win 17 and you got a guy like me averaging 14 points and we might pull off a playoff run 15 or 16 games above .500. You knew the Clippers (Jamal Crawford reference) were going to be good. You knew the Bulls (Taj Gibson reference) were going to be good, with or without D (Derrick) Rose. Y’all thought we were going after a Number 1 pick. I think I deserve Sixth Man Award for the team success.”

Scoring tends to be an important factor in winning this particular award, and that’s where Crawford shines.